Colin Chapman - The Innovator

Chapman challenged daily twenty new ideas. Ten of them could be put right aside, five were unachievable, three were very interesting, one was completely crazy, however the last one was brilliant. Can you think of anyone who comes up with a brilliant idea every day.
Graham Hill

Energetic, dynamic and endowed with stupefying self motivation, Colin Chapman was one of the few really original thinkers in the ranks of Formula 1 designers. He was the most influential and innovative constructor in Grand Prix history.
The team Lotus entered F1 in 1958, and Stirling Moss took the first victory for the marque at Monaco in 1960.
Lotus 25 of 1962 was the first Formula 1 car to feature monocoque construction. Jim Clark took it to first World Championship in 1963 and followed it up with another in 1965.
The Lotus 49 of 1967 used the new Cosworth engine as a structural part of the car, another highly progressive feature. Small wings and upward-sweeping rear body on this car in 1968 signalled the arrival of downforce in F1. Within a few races most of the field carried huge front and rear wings on stilts.
The wedge-shaped Lotus 72 of 1970 resolved the conflicting requirements of downforce and low drag.
In 1977 the new Lotus 78 brought another leap of aerodynamic downforce through the ground-effect principle on which Chapman had worked for a couple of years. The follow-up Lotus 79, certainly one of the best looking Formula 1 car ever, dominated with Mario Andretti the 1978 World Championship.
His last technical innovations was a dual-chassis Formula 1 car, the Lotus 88 in 1981. For ground effects of that era to function most efficiently, the aerodynamic surfaces needed to be precisely located and this led to the chassis being very stiffly sprung. This was very punishing to the driver. To get around this, Chapman introduced a car with two chassis. One chassis, where the driver would sit, was softly sprung. The other chassis, where the skirts and such were located, was stiffly sprung. Unfortunately, although the car passed scrutineering at a couple of races, it was protested by other teams and was never allowed to run. Under these circumstances, the car was never developed, so it will never be known if the idea would have worked.
Chapman also held the passionate belief that motor racing was all about technical innovation. When the FIA banned his dual-chassis Lotus 88 at the start of 1981, feeling that such a decision went absolutely against the grain of what F1 philosophy should be all about.
He was one of the very few engineers who not only made a difference, but dictated future engineering trends.
In 1982, in the year when Chapman died, team Lotus was testing the first Formula 1 car with active suspension, which was to come to the Grands Prix with Lotus 99T in 1987.